Sunday 7th January 2018

I wake up at some point in the hour before dawn with Scully asleep on my feet. She is happy enough. After the wine and rum the last night had succeeded to scramble my mind, or what is left of it.

I get up and stumble down stairs to feed the cats and think about coffee. Turns out Jools had been waiting for me to get before she too got up. Urgh. It is early, and Sunday.

I say early, it is quarter past seven, grey light filling the day outside, and cats are busy eating. Or at least Mulder and Scully are, we put food in a bowl and Jools goes up to be with Molly and to feed her. I sit down to watch the highlights of the previous day's football in the Cup. Scully came to sit beside me and to fall asleep amid all the excitement.

I stop at half eight once all the upsets had been on to fire up the grill to cook some thick cut bacon for butties. What better way to start the day? None at all.

Before going out for the day, I have to check on for the flight tomorrow, as last year as I did not travel too much, I am now one of the cattle class that has to choose seats 24 hours before the flight, not have the luxury of the whole week to do that. And having chosen seat 8A for both flights that week, I was free to go out and do stuff.

With the wind blowing a hooly outside, we thought that the power of the sea would be worth snapping. And indeed it would be the case, if the wind had been in any other direction other than NE, which meant that most of the English Channel was in the lea of the cliffs, and therefore like a millpond.

We went to St Martins Battery to look at the work ongoing down in the harbour to destroy the old hoverport and replace it with "something else". They say they are building a freight handling facility, but it looks like building sandcastles with huge toys.

Further along the coast, we stopped at Capel to peer over the cliffs down onto the Warren and to Folkestone beyond. No massive waves here either, and seemed to be none away on the curving bay towards Dungeness. I take some shots and we drive into folkestone.

We were in Folkestone for me to have a haircut. The salan is always open on Sundays, so get there before 11 before most normal folk are up and about. And that would have been OK if the barber hadn't had a baby, or his wife had a baby on Friday morning. Which meant that there was no haircuts to be had there that morning.

So I went on a quest to find a salon open on a Sunday morning. I walk to the main shopping street, past the town hall and there was a huge salan, it has half a dozen chairs, so I thought there would be a wait, but I was shown to a chair by a nice young man, who did not speak that much English, and I didn't feel it right to ask where he came from. Turkey or somewhere like that. Anyway, I say what I wanted, and he said was I sure? I was, so he fired up his collection of trimmers, and took half a millimeter off at a time, until, as Mum would say, he reached the wood at the back and sides.

An hour later (!) it was done, and before I left the shop I was cold. Outside I was even colder. I must remember to wear a hat on this week's trip to Denmark lest I did of exposure.

Jools was waiting in the car, waiting for me, as it was too cold to wander the streets. What's the plan? Back home for sausage rolls and a brew I says.

Sounds good.

I make sausage rolls once we're home, Jools goes up to feed Molly and spend some time with her.

And already there is football on the radio, so I roll pastry and sausage meat whilst Leeds lose to Newport, feasting on flakey pastry sausage rolls and huge mugs of strong tea. There is 6 solid hours off football on, West Ham playing in Shrewsbury was live on TV. Is it Shrewsbury or Shrewsbury? I don't know. It ended 0-0, and was Ok in a will there be a goal or not. Kind of way.

I also spend a lot of time with Molly. It is clear she is if not blind, almost blind. She must have been that way for some time. It should not affect her life too much, but seeing her so timid in trying to find her way about, or judging jumping down from a chair or my lap. But we are looking after her, she is eating well and putting on weight. We are hopeful of the future for her. Her scar is healing too, and she is not bothered by it.

Arsenal lose to Forest, 4-2, so got to laugh, and I cook steak for dinner.

Already the weekend has slipped through our fingers, and tomorrow I have to catch an early train to that London.

See you on Thursday.